1. Technical Field
The present invention pertains to the field of panoramic photography. More particularly, the present invention pertains to providing, on either the inner surface of a hollow object or the outer surface of an object, a view in photographs arranged on the surface of the object of what would be seen looking from some viewing position in all directions.
2. Description of Related Art
Panoramic photography, to encompass a wider field of view, has been attempted with many systems, both for film and for video cameras. For example, fisheye lenses may be used on cameras to record a hemispherical field of view in a single exposure. However, to gain greater overall resolution and more control over separate sections of the image, multiple exposures can also be used to create a composite wide-angle image.
Many systems of composite photography have been attempted. An optimum system would be one based upon a simple standard picture shape, with equal edges, and a simple and consistent organization that lends itself to a variety of formats and applications. These qualities are characteristic of the system described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,023,725 to McCutchen for a "Method and Apparatus for Dodecahedral Imaging System," where an imaging system is described based on the geometry of the pentagonal dodecahedron. There, a viewfinder apparatus is described whereby a movable region of interest is filled by combining information from one or more pentagonal video images held in a memory device. U.S. Pat. No. 5,703,604, also to McCutchen, for an "Immersive Dodecahedral Video Viewing System" further defines this process, and shows how it can be used for viewing of recorded multichannel panoramic video images.
The extraction of a movable window from a single hemispherical fisheye source image is found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,185,667 and 5,313,306 to Kuban et al. for an "Omniview Motionless Camera Endoscopy System."
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,130,794 to Ritchey for a "Panoramic Display System," a single video image of a near-spherical field of view is subdivided and sent to a multiplicity of flat display panels in a cubical room for viewing, in addition to being viewed by means of sending a portion of the image to a head-mounted display, through means not described. The geometry used to subdivide the image is according to a cube.
Other new forms of video processing have attempted to create a means of providing a panoramic source image from which a moving window of interest can be extracted. Apple Computer's Quicktime.TM. VR system is a set of programming tools for splicing together from 8 to 30 photographed views into an apparently continuous scene up to 55.degree. above and below the horizon. From this source image, a movable window of interest can be extracted, with the somewhat squashed appearance of the source image corrected for in the extracting process so that the extracted image looks natural. The images used in the extraction process are assumed to have been mapped around a cylindrical projection of a globe, which introduces distortion and changes of resolution, especially at the poles.
Another example of providing a panoramic view is U.S. Pat. No. 5,187,571 to Braun et al. for a "Television System for Displaying Multiple Views of a Distant Location," which describes a television transmission system using composite cameras to cover a wide field of view, and a composing station to select a widow of interest from among these available views, and to display the window of interest on a monitor.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,200,818 to Neta et al. for a "Video Imaging System with Interactive Windowing Capability" describes a generalized compound imaging system simultaneously displaying an overall image of the entire panoramic scene as well as a roving window of interest.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,153,716 to Smith for a "Panoramic Interactive System" describes a film viewing system wherein a portion of a recorded film panoramic image is displayed by a mechanical rotary apparatus controlled by the user. Besides being restricted to film images only, this invention also has limited provision for displaying images in motion.
What is needed is a full spherical view, i.e. an immersive view, albeit with some distortion, but an immersive view that does not rely on using a window to select what part of the full spherical view will be presented.